Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx turns back on Yahoo! search switcheroo

Ubuntu coders have abandoned plans to shift the next iteration of their popular distro to Yahoo! as the default search engine within Firefox and instead will stick with Google after all.

The open source outfit didn’t reveal why it had backtracked on its plans to replace Google as its default search engine in Ubuntu 10.04, AKA Lucid Lynx.

In January Ubuntu’s commercial sponsor, Canonical, said it would switch the next version of its distro to Yahoo! as the default search provider on 10.04 to help add a few more pennies to Ubuntu’s piggy bank.

“I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform,” wrote Canonical’s engineering boss Rick Spencer at the time.

But just a few months on and the Lucid Lynx deal with Yahoo! has been ditched.

“It was not our intention to ‘flap’ between providers, but the underlying circumstances can change unpredictably," said Spencer. "In this case, choosing Google will be familiar to everybody upgrading from 9.10 to 10.04 and the change will only be visible to those who have been part of the development cycle for 10.04.”

He added that the Ubuntu team would revert back to Google as the default search provider by the final code freeze of Lucid Lynx on 15 April. ®